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"That These May Eat" 



An Address by Robert Withington, 
Ph. D., " C. R. B.," in TrinIty Church, 
Bloomington, Indiana, on Sunday, the 
Eighteenth of March, 191 7. 



"When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great 
company come unto him y he saith unto Philips Whence shall 
we buy bread r , that these may eat?" — John vi: 5. 



BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA 
1917 



.suss 

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"THAT THESE MAY EAT" 



"When Jesus then lifted up his eyes; and saw a great com- 
pany come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy 
bread, that these may eatf John vi: 5. 



There is no irreverance in putting these words of the Master 
into the mouth of one who is doing His work in these dark 
days; and when Mr. Hoover comes to us with Christ's 
question: Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eatf 
do we not, like Philip, count the cost, and reply, "Two 
hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them that 
every one of them may take a little ?" 

Across the seas we have a sister, younger even than we in 
the family of nations — for she came into existence in 1830, 
forty-seven years after our national life began. Before the 
war, America took little notice of her — even less, perhaps, 
than it was our habit to take of European countries; and 
though some of us had visited her churches and galleries, and 
some of us had studied in her museums and libraries, as a 
people we knew little more about her than that Rubens lived 
in Antwerp, and Maeterlinck owes allegiance to her king. 
I need not here rehearse the story of August, 1914; you all 
remember how nobly Albert stood up before the invading 
army, whose leaders had torn the treaty, by which Belgian 
neutrality had been assured (as well as imposed), as if it 
had been "a scrap of paper." You all remember the stubborn 
resistance of Liege, the heroic defence of Namur; the scorn 
of the enemy at the lack of common-sense which this futile 
attempt to maintain national honor displayed; their ill-con- 
cealed anger at Belgian presumption, at her wilful failure to 
heed the voice of Prudence — her stupidity in ignoring the 
dictates of Reason. Belgian had all to lose save Honor — and 
that intangible possession is hers to-day. Her name has taken 
on a new meaning; and no one of her people regrets the course 
which Albert chose, though it has brought untold suffering. 
For all time, the world will revere the courage of Belgium; 
and we could almost find it in our hearts to envy her, as we 
contrast that historic session of her Parliament — when her 



king, like a second David, defied Goliath — with the other 
historic session of our own Senate, a few days ago. . . . 
Verily, "whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; 
and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it." 

With the occupation of their territory by an enemy, and 
the cessation of imports, the Belgians faced starvation. Some 
of their leading men went to England for food; and the 
British Government consented to allow Belgium to import 
just enough to keep body and soul together, if the food could be 
distributed by a Commission of neutrals, who would give 
guarantees that it would go to the Belgians only, and that 
it would be distributed equitably among them. The gentle- 
men from Antwerp and Brussels were referred to Dr. Page, 
our Ambassador in London; and he sent them to a man who 
had efficiently and silently built up an organization which, 
when banks were closed and credit did not exist, had helped 
many thousands of our stranded compatriots to reach home. 
Mr. Hoover is an American of whom we all may well be 
proud; he is, perhaps the only man in the world to-day who 
has the respect and confidence of both the British and the 
Germans . . . after working with both Governments for 
over two years . . . The Belgians went to him, and he 
listened to their appeal. 

With what helpers he could recruit from Rhodes Scholars 
at Oxford, Americans resident abroad, and even American 
newspaper men like Mr. Edward Hunt, who in War Bread, 
describes those early days, Mr. Hoover organized the Com- 
mission for Relief in Belgium, — affectionately known among 
its members as the "C. R. B." At first, no one thought that 
the work would last for a long time; it was supposed that, if 
the war went on for more than a few weeks, the distribution 
of food would be undertaken by a more permanent organiza- 
tion. But as the months passed, the Commission grew, both in 
influence and efficiency, until it now commands the respect 
and admiration of the world ; and this not only without every 
facility at its command, but in the face of increasing obstacles. 

Most of the distribution is carried on by the Belgian com- 
mittees — of which there is one for every commune, region 
and province in the country — under the direction of the 
Camite National; the American members of the C. R. B. 
import the food, and see to it that the guarantees are respected. 
To-day the budget of the Commission exceeds that of any 
railway system in the United States, and is greater than that 
of any one of fourteen nations. It calls for an expenditure 
of almost $18,000,000 a month; in all, the Commission has 



spent over $270,000,000, of which about half has come to this 
country. The British Government gave £500,000, and the 
French fr. 12,500,000 a month in the beginning; later the 
British doubled their allowance, and the French Government 
increased theirs by 40%. Shortly before his recent departure 
from the United States, Mr. Hoover said: "Three hundred 
thousand dollars a month, approximately, is contributed by 
Belgian refugees in England from their earnings in British 
industries. Of 220,000 Belgian refugees in England, only 
15,000 — mostly women and children — are unemployed. I 
want particularly to emphasize this point, because the Belgians 
have a right to impress upon the world that they are not 
hanging back without a struggle, and permitting themselves or 
their friends to become dependents . . . 

"The British Empire and France, to say nothing of the 
British possessions overseas, are burdened with such taxation 
as would have been considered impossible before the war; 
in addition, they have had their own wounded, their own 
widows and orphans to care for, and their own interrupted 
commerce to struggle with. And yet, without argument, 
without delay, they have dispensed a charity which will be 
one of the marvels of history, for they have handed to the 
Commission . . . more than ninety per cent, of all the money 
spent by the Commission for the feeding of Belgium." Obvi- 
ously, private charity could not carry the entire burden; but 
America has given, since first the call came, only 
$11,000,000 . . . With generosity from Canada, Australia 
and New Zealand — themselves belligerents — far outstripping 
ours, we cannot be proud of this record. 

After the Commission had been feeding nine and a half 
millions of people in Belgium and Northern France for 
nearly two years, it became evident that the ration — which 
was as large as the Allied Governments felt that they could 
allow the Occupied Territories — was not enough for the chil- 
dren of the poorer classes. The Germans have guaranteed 
that they would neither permit the exportation — for consump- 
tion in Germany — of the indigenous foodstuffs of Belgium, 
nor use these products for their troops ; but the price of meat, 
butter, eggs, milk, fresh vegetables, and what stock of coffee 
was in the country before the war began, had so risen, that 
the poor, and those who had been moderately well-off — the 
petite bourgeoisie — could not buy. Over a million children 
were beginning to show lessened vitality and a susceptibility to 
disease that was little short of alarming; so Mr. Hoover ob- 
tained permission from the Allies to import an extra amount 



of food, which, being given to the children at the schools, 
would save the coming generation. This supplementary ration 
for the soupes scolaires will cost about $1,250,000 a month — 
$1 per child — and the Commission has come to America for 
the money. 

When Philip answered Christ's question, he thought of 
the vast sum necessary to pay for the bread, and he knew that 
the disciples' treasury could not begin to furnish it. "Two 
hundred pennyworth" — a vast sum to him ... Is it this 
which makes America hesitate when Mr. Hoover asks for 
money to buy bread for the victims of the war across the sea? 

The Chairman of the Commission said recently: "When 
Cardinal Mercier ordered prayers offered in all the churches 
of Belgium, that the American Commission might remain in 
Belgium, he looked confidently to America not only for the 
day to day moral and material support of a little handful of 
Americans in Belgium, but for the larger support which would 
mean that when Belgium is restored to freedom, her return- 
ing Government might not find her an empty husk, but a 
people of high spirit and regenerated ideals . . . 

"This Commission was founded by the intervention of the 
American Government, and is carried on by her citizens. 
To-day it is the largest venture in history of international, 
benevolent, economic service and of charity. It stands to the 
world as an American institution, and has so far brought 
lustre to the American people. Its continued success should 
be a matter of American pride. But this credit to the United 
States carries a responsibility and a national duty. 

"No war or other difficulty into which America may be 
plunged can absolve her from this duty, and least of all from 
following the example of France and Great Britain ..." 

Everywhere in Belgium the gratitude for what we have 
done is touching to behold. Those of us who have not been 
there can get — before the end of the war — but a small idea of 
what a truly grateful people is. If any of us go to Belgium 
after the peace which we all desire has been signed; if any 
of us talk here with Belgians who have lived through the 
dark days of the Occupation, we shall be ashamed of their 
thankfulness, unless we did our "bit" when the need was 
great. We flatter ourselves that we are a generous people; 
but generosity is not giving what we have no use for. How 
many of us actually denied ourselves anything last week, that 
we might give to our neighbors — victims of a cyclone? 

Mr. Hoover has sought to show Europeans that America 
was a land misjudged — that we were not money-grabbers; 



that we had ideals outside of the six letters of the word 
dollar; that we would listen to the call of humanity. Once, 
relates Mr. Geo. Barr Baker of the New York office, 

"Mr. Hoover visited the German officials, and asked them 
as a representative of the American people if they would 
grant him certain concessions which might tend to 
ameliorate suffering. One of the officials turned to him 
and said: 'You do not represent the American people. 
All Europe knows that you do not represent them. You 
come here as one of a small band of eccentric world- 
citizens who have sacrificed their time and their money 
to help these people, and out of respect for what you 
have done and are doing, we will grant you these favors 
that you ask.' " 

Do we want the gratitude of the Belgians to fade? Do 
we want them to feel that they were mistaken in the meaning 
of the word America? . . . There is no argument about the 
value of what the Commission for Relief in Belgium has 
done, or is doing: everyone grants that it is a noble work. 
But the attitude of America gives food for thought — of no 
agreeable kind. Those of us who have any patriotism at all, 
are devoutly thankful to Mr. Hoover for what he is doing 
in the name of America. When I entered a Belgian school — 
as I have often done — and saw the children sitting before 
their bowls of soup; and when at a signal from their teacher, 
they arose and sang in French The Star-Spangled Banner; 
or when I would hear them sing a Flemish song, the burden 
of which was: "Who gives us bread? Who sends us things 
to eat and wear? America! America!" — I could not help 
thinking of our nine million dollars . . . 

But with all my desire to hide the truth from them, I should 
not have been human if I had addressed them, saying : "This 
is very kind of you, children, and I appreciate your gratitude. 
I am, however, very sorry to say that my country does not 
deserve it. I cannot go home and tell people how grateful 
you are. I wish we had done something to deserve this 
tribute. Eat your soup — you need it — but don't waste time 
thanking us for what we have not done." If I did not let 
them know the fact: that if it had depended on American 
charity, the Commission could not have lasted a month, 
neither could I accept for America all the credit. When 
Belgians said to me — some of them with tears in their eyes 
— "Whatever should we have done if America had not come 
to our aid? We should all have starved!" — I had to reply 
that we had not done as much as they thought we had; that, 



indeed, we had done very little; but I added that I felt it an 
honor and a privilege to do what I could. Do you not feel 
the same? Without the Commission, it is true, the people 
would possibly have starved — or would have been put on 
such a minute ration that they would be suffering even more 
than they are; but the chief part which our country as a 
whole has hitherto played in this affair, is to gather the credit 
of it, with little of the expense . . . And now that we are 
threatened with war, we use that excuse to save us from 
giving. Is that a reason to let Belgium starve? If the 
American delegates are recalled from Belgium, their places 
will be taken by neutrals who will watch over the guarantees 
as we have done; and as long as the Allies permit the food 
to go in, as long as the Commission transports it to Rotterdam, 
our duty is clear. He who uses the necessity of saving for 
our own war-relief work as an excuse for not giving to 
Belgium, is not going to give to either cause . . . 

The following telegram, which came yesterday from Mr. 
Baker of the New York office of the Commission, will serve 
to clear up many doubts and misgivings which the events of 
the past days may have evoked: "Any loss sustained on the 
sea is fully covered by marine insurance. Absolute and 
definite assurances received that the Commission's ships will 
be safe-guarded from attack if following the Northern route 
agreed upon. Six Commission ships held at Rotterdam pend- 
ing necessary preliminaries have sailed with German safe- 
conduct passes. German submarine commanders have been 
notified as to safe conduct for our ships; and German safe- 
conduct passes guarantee against attack. We have been re- 
quested to maintain American director in Brussels if our 
Delegates withdraw; and work will continue under the gen- 
eral administration of the C. R. B." 

There are sixteen ships loaded with grain on the ocean now, 
and six more will start this week. In the last two years, the 
Commission has lost 15 steamers — all of them insured — out 
of 500 voyages. The sinking of these vessels is a rare occur- 
rence ; "at the worst," says Mr. Hoover, "this is in the nature 
of incidental misfortune, and it is unthinkable that most of 
our ships should not reach their destination. The Commission 
has passed through a dozen crises before; but the faith that 
the cry of ten millions of helpless people cannot remain un- 
heard, and the ability, courage and resolution of my colleagues 
has weathered every storm so far." 

The association which we have with a word — its "con- 
notation"— is its soul. The physical word denotes (as we 

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say) ; and is, in itself, relatively unimportant. This rhetorical 
truth is, perhaps, more obvious in the case of proper names 
than of common nouns ; the word Richard or Mary takes on a 
personality when it suggests a friend, or someone we find un- 
congenial. The actions of an individual, the associations 
which we have with a place — and these, in turn, are usually 
dependent upon the actions of someone at that place — clothe 
a word with personality. If we meet, and like, a Frenchman 
or a German, we feel at once an interest in — it may even be 
an affection for — the patrie or the vaterland whence he comes, 
though we have never seen it, and never may. If, on the 
other hand, he should happen not to appeal to us, we hastily 
generalize about all Germans or all French — quite forgetting 
how we ourselves are being judged thousands of miles away by 
those who run into some fellow-countryman whom we know 
not, and would not care to know. This is especially true 
to-day, when a whole country is judged by its leaders — those 
who happen to make up the government. It is, of course, 
unjust; but it is so. 

Each one of us does his part toward building up the char- 
acter of several proper nouns : Bloomington, for example, or 
Indiana; and such adjectives as American and Christian. It 
is the spirit shown by a group of fraternity men which gives 
a personality to, let us say, Omega Alpha; by the student 
body and the alumni, to Stanford or Columbia. Proper nouns 
and adjectives live by the acts of the men and women con- 
nected with the institutions or places they name; and our acts 
as Americans affect the reputation of our country. 

It is, I think, needless to point out that the word Indiana, 
for instance, connotes something different to almost every- 
one who hears it. To those who have never visited us, it 
can have but a shadowy meaning at best — and that made up 
of an acquaintance with Indiana people away from their native 
heath, or upon a second-hand knowledge of the laws and in- 
stitutions of the State. Recent legislation makes it an honored 
name to the prohibitionist, and anathema to the brewer; San 
Francisco suggests earthquake and fire to one ; a great Exposi- 
tion to another; Belgium means either martyrdom or a folly 
worse than Quixotic. Those who visit a university cannot 
have the same association with its name after they have seen 
the campus that they had before they saw it; those who have 
studied there cannot regard the place as do the visitors; a 
Senior sees the word — as he sees the place — through other 
eyes than the Freshman's — or his whose connection with the 
college has ceased at "the request of the Dean. It needs no 



further illustration to show that the connotation of a word 
is its reputation — what we think of when we hear it. 

The reputation of a man depends upon what he says and 
does; the reputation of a place upon the thoughts and deeds 
of the people who inhabit that place — those who are respon- 
sible for what the place-name connotes. And sometimes a 
very small group is enough to bring glory or shame to a 
city. Paris suggests, to too many people, "dissipation" ; Boston 
— quite as unfairly — connotes "culture." The uncultivated 
Bostonians benefit, as the staid and sober Parisians — the great 
majority — suffer, from the reputation which their city enjoys. 
America has gained a name abroad which she has not earned ; 
and now Mr. Hoover is asking us to live up to it. Surely 
it will be a national disgrace if, owing to the lack of our 
support, the Belgian children must be deprived of the soupe 
scolaire! As Americans, we have a patriotic duty to see that 
they get it; as Christians, we can only welcome this oppor- 
tunity to help carry on the work of Him who said: "Inas- 
much as ye have done it unto the least of these My brethren, 
ye have done it unto Me." 

Some of you have already contributed to the fund which 
our University has recently pledged to the Commission for 
Relief in Belgium, in order to furnish the extra ration for 
a commune in the Region of Huy. That Indiana is the first 
University in the United States to respond to Mr. Hoover's 
appeal, may well give us satisfaction; for there is a reward 
in doing our duty which does not come from our neighbors' 
praise. An officer does not congratulate the soldier who obeys 
orders; he shoots him if he doesn't. . .Our orders come to 
us, as Christians, through our consciences — and if we do not 
obey, we suffer. 

The citizens of Bloomington have been asked to pledge 
the sum of $100 a month for a year — or $1,200 in all — to feed 
the children of another Belgian village. As a total, this seems 
large; but as $1 a month from a hundred people among ten 
thousand it is very small. Yet if every community as large 
as this, throughout the country, were to give a like amount, 
the gift which Mr. Hoover desires — $1,250,000 a month — 
would soon be forthcoming. Bloomington has given gener- 
ously to Newcastle; but does this catastrophe help feed the 
Belgians ? If we were going to give before, how much greater 
reason to give now — when suffering has been brought home 
to us! You, who have already given as much as you can 
afford to give, have still a task: go out among your fellows 
and persuade them to pledge what they can for Belgium. . . 

10 



Are we so narrow-lived that only the troubles of our neigh- 
bors affect us ? 

The memory of Mr. Hoover and his Commission will en- 
dure as long as the history of the war, with which it is 
inextricably woven — a bright strand in the dark fabric. The 
name of America will forever be connected with the one 
constructive agency — among so much destruction — which the 
war has brought forth. Together with the Red Cross, the 
Commission has stood for the saving of humanity. Never has 
such a charity been seen — never the sisterhood of nations so 
beautifully exemplified! And when our grandchildren shall 
go to Belgium, years hence, and find Antwerp celebrating the 
Fourth of July in memory of what America did for her in 
her hour of need, what joy will be theirs, and what pride!. . . 
But if they know that their ancestors ignored the work — or 
gave the answer of Phillip when Mr. Hoover appealed to 
them — how will the future Americans feel? 

It has been said : "Fail to attack the American pocketbook, 
and you can attack his honor with impunity." This is, of 
course, a slander. But can it be said of us that if one appeals 
to our patriotism through our pocketbook, we remain deaf? 
"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." 
I ask that you send a small part of both to the Belgians ; that 
you give what you can to the fund we are raising in the 
town. See to it — as far as you are able — that the reproach 
of apathy cannot be applied to Bloomington — to Indiana — to 
America; and that this body of Christians, at least, cannot 
be called lethargic. Do not mouth texts : translate them into 
action, now — while the need is great ; remember the little chil- 
dren, "who, for two years, have not eaten according to their 
hunger." 

The village of Fooz, in the Province of Liege, has a hundred 
children who need your charity. "Whence shall we buy bread 
that these may eat?" You have heard the call of patriotism 
and of humanity. 

Fourth Sunday in Lent, 1917. 



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